Tide’s Tua Tagovailoa: 2 picks were ‘totally poor...

1of5Alabama head coach Nick Saban runs off the field as time expires in the first half of the 2019 College Playoff National Championship Game between Alabama and Clemson at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., on Monday, January 7, 2019.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

2of5Alabama head coach Nick Saban on the sidelines in the first half of the 2019 College Playoff National Championship Game between Alabama and Clemson at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., on Monday, January 7, 2019.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

3of5Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa (13) is stopped on fourth down by Clemson linebacker Tre Lamar in the third quarter.Photo: Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle

4of5Alabama's Irv Smith, Jr. is tackled by Clemson's K'Von Wallace in 1st quarter during College Football Playoff championship game at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. on Monday, January 7, 2019.Photo: Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle

5of5Alabama's Najee Harris reacts after being tackled for a 3 yard loss in 2nd quarter against Clemson during College Football Playoff championship game at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. on Monday, January 7, 2019.Photo: Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle

A year ago, Tua Tagovailoa came off the bench in the second half to steer Alabama to a come-from-behind 26-23 win over Georgia in overtime for the national title.

On Monday night, the sophomore quarterback threw two costly interceptions against Clemson. The first was returned 44 yards for a touchdown by A.J. Terrell. The second was returned 46 yards by Trayvon Mullen, setting up a touchdown that put the Tigers up 28-16.

Tagovailoa said it wasn’t anything that Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables called that confused him.

“I don’t think there was anything they were doing that stopped us,” he said. Those were “totally poor decisions on my part. We were killing ourselves. Shot ourselves in the foot by me throwing the interceptions and not finishing drives the way we wanted to.”

Alabama converted just two of four red-zone opportunities.

“We just weren’t executing what the plays were,” Tagovailoa said. “We just couldn’t punch it in.”

Head coach Nick Saban said Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence’s performance was no surprise.

“He’s played extremely well all year long. We knew that their receiving corps was probably the most talented we’ve seen as a group all year long.”

Saban said he didn’t think the Tide should hang their heads.

“I don’t think one game necessarily defines who you are, and that’s what I’d like our players to know.”

But he said, “We certainly didn’t play very well tonight. Couldn’t get off the field on third down. We gave up some explosive plays on third down:3rd-down-and-13, 3rd-down-and-9.

“We had plenty of opportunities to score offensively. We had the ball at the 1-yard, took a penalty and ended up kicking a field goal. We had it down there a couple more times: a fake field goal and stopped on the goal line another time.”

Saban thought his team stopped Clemson’s running game fairly well and created enough third-down situations.

“We just couldn’t get off the field on third down. ... They were 8-for-11 (on third-down conversions) at one point.”

Nose tackle Quinnen Williams, the Outland Trophy winner, said giving up 266 yards and 31 points in the first half was “very shocking. We usually don’t make those errors, and it’s too late in the season to make those mistakes.”

Williams said Lawrence was good, “but his receivers made him better. He put the ball where only his receivers could catch it.”

The feeling in the Tide locker room was that although Lawrence was excellent, he wasn’t the best quarterback they faced this season. That was Oklahoma’s Kyler Murray.

“Murray’s the best,” Williams said.

Middle linebacker Mack Wilson agreed. “Trevor held his own, being a freshman. He was able to make a lot of explosive plays, have confidence and make great throws.”

A pass play that freshman Justyn Ross broke for a 74-yard touchdown, giving Clemson a 37-16 lead, “was what did it,” Wilson said. “They had a lot of momentum after that. ...

“We shot ourselves in the foot. We couldn’t get off the field on third down, and that played a big part in the game.”

Tom FitzGerald has been the Stanford beat writer for The San Francisco Chronicle since 2009. He also covers men’s and women’s basketball and many other Stanford sports.

He also covers motor sports in the Bay Area and wrote about the America's Cup regatta in San Francisco in 2013, during which Oracle Team USA made one of the greatest comebacks in sports history to beat Emirates Team New Zealand.

Among the many momentous games he has covered were the 49ers' victory over Dallas in the 1982 NFC Championship Game, which featured "The Catch'' by Dwight Clark, and the U.S. hockey team’s 1980 Olympic upset of the Soviet Union in Lake Placid, N.Y. At the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, he rode the bobsled run with members of the U.S. team for a first-person story. He also rode on Russell Coutts’ Oracle Team USA catamaran in 2012 and in an Indy car with legendary Mario Andretti in 2014 for other first-person stories.

For 15 years he wrote a popular sports humor column called "Top of the Sixth" (later re-titled "Open Season"). A weekly version of the column was nationally syndicated in as many as 50 daily newspapers.

He has a degree in political science from the University of Massachusetts. He lives in Benicia.